3-Way SLI Matchup
Nvidia's 3-way SLI technology has gotten off to a somewhat inauspicious start since its arrival late last year. First, the triple GPU scheme didn't quite deliver the kind of performance upgrade many expected for such an expensive setup (the benchmark results for Crysis were particularly distressing). Second, 3-way SLI has now been leapfrogged by Nvidia's second attempt at Quad SLI with the GeForce 9800 GX2 card, which essentially combines two 8800 GTS cores on a single card (this release has also produced mixed results).
Will 3-Way SLI simply fade into the sunset now that the GeForce 9800 GX2 scheme has arrived? It's possible, though several high-end system builders are making some monster PCs with 3-way SLI and proving that the 8800 GTX and Ultras aren't exactly dinosaurs. Tom's Games first explored the 3-way SLI era with Falcon Northwest's impressive Mach V system earlier this year. At nearly $9,000, the Mach V is an expensive piece of hardware, but the system delivered superb 3DMark benchmark results. We recently received another 3-way SLI gaming rig, this one from Puget Systems, and we decided to compare it with the Mach V. Here are the system specs for factory overclocked Deluge L3 from Puget:
This comparison, however, proved to be tricky. Shortly after our Mach V review, we updated our hardware benchmark tests for Tom's Hardware, Tom's Guide and Tom's Games (here is the full list of updated benchmark tests). As a result, we upgraded to 3DMark06, among other applications. Unfortunately, comparing the results of the Deluge L3 to the Mach V became an apples-to-oranges comparison. So we decided to run 3DMark05 on the Deluge L3 to present a glimpse of the Puget's performance in the 3-way SLI department (look for the full Deluge L3 review with the updated benchmark tests on Tom's Games). Here's a look at how the Deluge L3 stacked up against the Mach V:
With no AA or AF, the Deluge L3 easily beats the Mach V's numbers by significant margins at all resolution tests. The Deluge L3's performance is even more impressive at 4x AA and 8x AF. While the Mach V narrowly beats out the Deluge L3 at the lowest screen resolution, the Puget system emerges as the champ in the other four resolution tests. The Deluge L3's numbers are particularly strong at the higher resolutions.
We also fired up Crysis to see how the Deluge L3 handled the game at very high settings and compare the results to the Mach V's performance. Here's a look at the results:
The Deluge L3 posted slightly better numbers than the Mach V in all but one of the tests; however, the differences aren't very noticeable. The biggest gain for the Deluge L3 comes in the "First Light" test at 1920x1200, but two systems are separated by decimal points in the "Paradise Lost" test at the same resolution. The Mach V edges out the Deluge L3 in the "First Light" test at 2560x1600, while the Puget system turns the table on the Falcon Northwest rig in the "Paradise Lost" test. It's important to point out that both sets of tests were performed with the Crysis 1.1 patch, yet the Deluge L3 used Nvidia's 169.25 ForceWare instead of the 169.28 beta driver installed on the Mach V. During our Crysis tests with the Mach V earlier this year, we discovered that 3-way SLI was having some difficulties with the 169.28 beta driver - specifically, we were getting higher frame rates at 2560x1600 by disabling 3-way SLI. The game's performance with 3-way SLI enabled at the maximum resolution was plagued by major lag and significant pauses in gameplay.
We decided to run the Deluge L3 through the same tests at 2560x1600 but stuck with the 169.25 driver instead of upgrading to the beta driver. We turned off 3-way SLI during the "Paradise Lost" section of game and discovered that the Deluge L3 wasn't suffering from the same kind of problems as the Mach V experienced with the 169.28 beta driver. Specifically, with just one GPU working, the average FPS for the test section declined to 7.96, which is what you would expect to happen. However, the results for the "First Light" section with 3-way SLI turned off delivered a slightly higher average FPS at 8.85. So it seems that some of the issues 3-way SLI has with Crysis aren't entirely attributable to Nvidia's 169.28 beta driver.
This is just a preview of the Deluge L3's performance. As previously stated, we will be doing full hardware review with the updated benchmark tests for the system in the near future. Stay tuned for more on Tom's Games.
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